A Gaming Diary
Archive for February, 2006
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 18th
God, I love this game.
Why can I kill Blanka in Free Battle but not when he turns up in Arcade mode?
Dead Or Alive 4
Feb 18th
Well, okay.
Dead or Alive 3.5, maybe.
Or Dead or Alive 2.2, even more mayber.
Bad thing? Don’t think so so far.
Haven’t played it all that much, to be fair.
Went through story mode three times with Christie. Or whatever her name is. Something like that. White hair, claims to be poisonous, seems to be allergic to clothing. You know.
Then I decided to – gulp! – jump into online mode. Bought myself a space lobby and a skeleton avatar, found a lobby, joined, first thing I heard was a voice saying, “Argh! It’s just started lagging!” So I left. So I joined another one and had I game. Which I lost. Then another game. Which I lost. Then another game. Which I lost. Then another game. Which I won! Then another game. Which I lost.
Lag was terrible, but I don’t mind the game slowing down, to be honest. I don’t think I managed a counter in any of the matches I played.
Anyway, after that I went into my profile to poke around, went to an “Edit Comment” page, which was a black box with a flashing yellow square in it. Nothing I pressed on the pad did anything. At all. Couldn’t enter text, couldn’t quit out. Nothing. So I had to bring the Guide up and dump myself back to the dashboard. At which point I decided to turn off the 360 and watch TV Burp.
Marble Blast Ultra
Feb 18th
Hooray!
Whirl is defeated!
Not sure how I managed it, but for two beautiful minutes and eight glorious seconds everything went my way and I sneaked home.
How people have managed it fourteen seconds I don’t know. There must be some serious glitches somewhere.
OutRun 2
Feb 18th
Well, as the Xbox was on I couldn’t not, could I?
Did the the easiest route in arcade a couple of times and came 5th and 3rd on the high score table. Flushed with success, I decided to try a mission, as I’ve never fnished mission mode. A few goes later I realised why – it’s bloody hard. Too hard for midnight Friday night, anyway.
Halo
Feb 17th
As Taito Legends was such a disappointment I decided to fall back to Halo. All the talk in the rllmuk thread about the game had left me itching to play it on Legendary difficulty again. Seems I’d finished a few levels already on that setting, so I started where I’d stopped, at the beginning of the level called Halo. Took me ages to reach the first checkpoint. Then ages more to reach the second. I haven’t reached the third yet.
But, oh, despite looking weirdly dark on my LCD TV, it was wonderful stuff. It really is gaming perfection. And it was the Needler that got me through to the second checkpoint. It’s got a reputation as a useless weapon, but it really, really isn’t.
Taito Arcade Legends
Feb 17th
Broken.
It boots in widescreen, which is good… but it plays the games in widescreen, too, which is bad. There’s an option in the menu to play the games in OAR, but it doesn’t actually seem to do anything. I don’t want my games stretched, thank you!
Rubbish.
Also, they’ve broken Rainbow Islands. The music’s rubbish and it just doesn’t seem responsive.
Bah.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Feb 17th
So Whitney asks to come over. I leave the DS turned on with the sound turned up by me so I won’t forget. For half an hour. She finally comes round, refuses to rate me and only stays one minute.
Grr.
And according to Friga a cactus in a pot isn’t a houseplant. It’s been in my house for weeks now, thanks.
Grr.
And that bloody kitten’s back. But she wants to go to Teacozy, which actually is a town I’m likely to visit. The only town I’m likely to visit, really. So that’s okay. Still, that kitten’s very annoying.
Grr.
Marble Blast Ultra
Feb 16th
Ah.
Hmm.
I set myself a challenge of getting below-par times on all the Intermediate levels before next Wednesday. I thought it’d be easy enough. I only had three levels left to do. And I’ve now done two of them.
Problem?
The problem is Whirl. It is a bastard. An utter, utter bastard. It demands complete perfection over an incredibly long and difficult course. In what way this is Intermediate rather than advanced I really don’t know. The par time is 2:20. My best time is 15:21. And that’s after about ninety minutes of playing it.
Oh my.
Dragon Quest VIII
Feb 15th
Final completion time 63:18.
And I know there was a whole sub-game I missed out.
Ending left one or two things dangling, but was nevertheless most excellent. A real, proper ending to the adventure.
Moments of frustration, yes. But in the end no boss actually took me more than two tries, as far as I remember. (I think looking for boss tips in the FAQ was a bad thing, given that I finished below the recommended level and without any of the uber-powerful items and weapons it said I should have with me.)
So apart from odd difficulty spikes and having one boss at the end of a long dungeon, it was all very well put together. Great stuff overall… as long as you’re willing to push on when it threatens to become overwhelmingly frustrating.
Dragon Quest VIII
Feb 15th
I did it!
I only went and bleedin’ did it!
Thirty-nine minutes it took. All my skill, all my cunning. Items and abilities and spells and attacks. Omniheal! Kerplunk! Sage’s stone! Oomph! Kabuff!
I was magnificent.
Oh man, there’s not many feelings like seeing that bastard (who looked a lot like me, disturbingly) go down.
Ignore what I said earlier.
Best game ever!
Now to see the end! Well, I assume it’s time for the end after that…
